EPEAT, the leading global environmental rating system for electronic products, has been notified by Apple today that it is withdrawing its products from their certification system and will no longer be submitting its products for environmental rating. EPEAT promises to connect its purchasers to environmentally preferable choices and benefit its producers who demonstrate environmental responsibility and innovation.
According to the EPEAT’s blog announcement:
For participating electronics manufacturers, EPEAT is a chance to showcase and validate their greener design initiatives, cleaner production and customer support services. But EPEAT is more than simply a product rating – it is also a community effort by all interested stakeholders to define and maintain best practice in environmental sustainability for electronics.
We regret that Apple will no longer be registering its products in EPEAT. We hope that they will decide to do so again at some point in future.
Will this have any significant impact on Apple’s product sales? I don’t think so!
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In US, certain government agencies, businesses and schools have stated policy of only EPEAT certified IT products can be used. For them, Apple products would no longer be an option.
This probably has to do with the whole tightening up on security to keep product releases more confidential.
Actually no. The main reason is EPEAT’s requirement that “recyclers need to be able to easily disassemble products, with common tools, to separate toxic components, like batteries.”
Since new Apple products have moved towards glued components and non-serviceable parts (like the new MacBook Pro which has glued in batteries and glued in LCD panels), they would find it increasingly difficult to satisfy EPEAT’s requirement. What’s puzzling is Apple’s decision to pull all the existing and already certified products.
i like when the comments are more informative than the article. It’s such a stray from the norm.